Spilled Milk
by illegiblewriter
Summary: *One-Shot* V/M "I should have known better than to expect our relationship to be sorted out without any input from myself. But what can I say? I was naïve and confident in Meryl's ability to mold the very cosmos to her bidding." Pls r/r!


**Spilled Milk**

Mopping things up is not my usual style. Normally, I _make_ all the ruckus and then high tail it out of town faster than you can say "quick draw". _Other _people clean up the mess I leave behind. People who are good at keeping the order. People who are reliable. People who don't have bounty hunters tracking them all across Gunsmoke.

People like Meryl.

So when I returned to LR town after reuniting with my elder brother, I had no idea what to do. For once I was going back to face the problems I had left behind instead of running from them, and for the first time since the Great Fall I had personal ties to people other than my twin—strings that I found myself unwilling to detach. I was being pulled by an unspoken and hitherto unknown-to-me Great Force towards a place where I had left behind a great deal of spilled milk. I don't know what I was expecting. It wasn't the kind of mess that could be cleaned up by one person, and yet I think that's exactly what I expected. It seemed so natural for Meryl to have pulled out her magical mop and soapy water and made it all disappear. And for the most part she had. We now owned the house we had been renting, there was food on the table, and even a room ready-made for my brother's arrival—filled to the ceiling with bandages and disinfectant, completed with two borrowed beds from the hospital.

Obviously, Meryl believed as firmly as I did that she could handle anything.

Perhaps I should have remembered her annoying habit of proceeding regardless of any cost, be it life, limb, or happiness, when it came to "handling anything". I was reminded of that stubbornness just one month ago, the afternoon I saw her walking into the pawnshop on the outskirts of town.

This was a curious moment in time. I think I even cocked my head to the side like a confused puppy. And then after a few moments to check that no one was watching I fled after her. The shop was the very last building on the main street to the north of town and probably the oldest after the saloon if the weather-beaten exterior was any indication. The door was shabby and creaked on its hinges when I came in but otherwise there was no accompanying bell to alert anyone of my presence; so, I wasn't surprised when Meryl didn't turn around to look at me. I doubt she would have heard me even if a marching band preceded my entrance, so engrossed was she in her argument with the shop owner, one Mr. Timbre.

"Don't give me any of that bullshit. I'm an insurance agent. I know exactly what these are worth and I'm not taking less that $$2,500 for them." She gritted through her teeth, not even glancing at the item in question. Mr. Timbre just stood there opening and closing his mouth like some fish that didn't understand why he couldn't convert air into oxygen.

"B-but—" he stammered. Poor guy. Didn't know whom he was dealing with.

"You know what? Never mind. Mr. Pollus has a small fortune now that his well is working. And I think he and Muriel's wedding anniversary is coming up—" As I stepped closer I saw her hand reach out and grasp at a glittering object on the front counter.

"Okay!" the owner gasped, fear evident in his eyes. But I knew better than to feel sorry for him. Meryl played hard, but she was always fair.

I could almost hear the smirk in Meryl's answering "alright" before her fingers flexed and I saw the object she had been pawning.

"Short girl?"

She whipped her head around and I saw a flash of emotions cross her face.

"Vash? What are you doing here?"

"More like, what are _you_ doing here, pawning your grandmother's earrings?"

She looked down at the floor, her shoulders hunched and tense, and didn't reply. It was then that I noticed something. Something I hadn't seen before because—well, I wasn't looking. My every thought, action and effort had been strained on my brother the last two weeks and—it was like I hadn't really seen her since I came back.

Her hair was longer, two more months' worth of hair now fell over her eyes. Which were slightly more sunken into her face than I remembered. As was the rest of her body. And she was tired. Boy, was she tired. I could distinctly hear Millie telling me something about that a few days ago, 'Sempai is so tired. Can't you tell?' and I could.

Realization swept over me, well; maybe that's the wrong way to say it. It was more like every little, fat, red cell in my body let out a sigh of understanding, and of relief at that understanding. Oh, so simple. So very clear.

I twisted around and started silently digging through the pocket on the inside of my pants I had sown shut a few years ago. Next to me, Meryl cleared her throat.

"Okay, so, $$2,500 it is then." They had resumed negotiating during my perusal of Meryl's condition and I heard Mr. Timbre pull out his keys to open wherever it was he kept the money.

"No, it's not," I interrupted the exchange just as I pulled a small and delicate ring out of my pocket and set it on the counter. "Take your earrings back, Meryl. How much will this fetch?" I addressed the last part to Mr. Timbre.

"Vash, what are you doing?" Meryl hissed as Mr. Timbre pulled out his spectacles—it's a funny word, 'spectacles'—and began investigating the ring.

"I'm sorry short-girl, I didn't realize we were so short on cash. You should have told me." I picked up her gold earrings, which I only knew were her grandmother's because of a very late, very drunken, and very emotional conversation a few years back.

"I _did _tell you we were short on cash!"

"Well you should have made sure I heard you better!"

"Moron!" she huffed, "besides, it's just rationing."

I looked at the glowering woman before me in disbelief, "then why haven't you told me to start rationing, too?"

She shook her head, "I don't care if you're walking around and making jokes again; you're still on the mend."

"I could get a job!"

"Where Vash? Who the hell is going to hire 'Vash the Stampede'?"

I returned her glare this time, but knew she was probably right. She took a breath and then continued.

"Look, we were fine before, even with you and Knives here. But last night, when Millie said she was—" Meryl sucked in a shuddered breath, "she'll have to quit her job soon, and not too long after we'll have yet _another_ mouth to feed."

"Ahem," Mr. Timbre was looking at us from behind the counter. "I'll give you—"

"Careful, wrathful insurance girl, remember?" I joked but his face paled a little bit as he remembered there'd be no sneaking anything past Meryl.

"$$14,500."

Meryl did a double take and snatched the ring up off the counter. I knew what she'd see upon inspection. A very old otherworldly treasure: a golden band with a circle of genuine pearls hugging a large sapphire from Earth. I'm not sure if she gasped, I was already smiling at the old man, agreeing heartily to his terms and watching as he counted out the appropriate amount, which was almost everything he had hidden in the back.

"Are you done?" I asked Meryl, "Because he's gonna want that," I said, pointing to the ring.

She nodded dumbly as I dropped the ring into the owner's waiting hands and pocketed the money we'd just received.

"Now," I said as I got out her grandmother's earrings and began putting them back on her ears, "why don't you say we get something to eat?" I tilted her chin up so I could see her face more clearly. She seemed a bit more recovered, though not enough for speech yet, so I waved good-bye to the pawn-dealer and escorted her across the street to a small breakfast diner.

"C'mon, I suspect we can spare a few double-dollars on breakfast now. Let's splurge on the eggs Benedict—that's your favorite, right?" the renewed look of shock on her face told me she hadn't suspected I would be that observant. It stung.

We took our seats at the foremost booth and I gave my winning-est, charming-est smile to the waitress before putting on my "serious face" for Meryl.

"_Why _didn't you tell me?"

"I _did_ tell you!"

"Prior to ten minutes ago in the pawn shop?"

"Argh!" Meryl slammed her fist into table, causing the ketchup and hot sauce bottles to jump. "I have reminded you and Milly to stop spending unnecessary money every day for the last two months!"

"I wasn't here two months ago." _Dammit! Shut up Stupid Vash! Where did Serious Vash go?_

"Grrrrrr…. No, but you were here two weeks ago when I told Milly she couldn't buy any more pudding, and you were here last Thursday when the landlord came by to tell us we were behind on our rent—"

"I thought we owned the house?"

"Why the hell would we already own the house?" Alright, so scratch that thing from earlier… "and you were here _yesterday _when Milly told us she was _pregnant!_" By now short girl was out of her seat, hunched over the table and glaring directly at me while practically shouting in my ear. There was a moment of silence, followed by Meryl's heavy breathing, a gasp, and a plate being dropped in the kitchen.

"Is it true?" Our waitress gasped, "Is Miss Millie really pregnant?" Meryl and I suddenly found ourselves the focus of the entire diner, including those halfway through the door on the way out.

"Uh…."

"YES!" I cried and as expected the whole room erupted into celebration—who could be anything but happy for Millie?

"_Vash!_" Merly hissed.

"Oh now what? Look! Everyone's so happy!"

"Yes, but what if she miscarries? What if she doesn't want anyone to know yet? What if she loses her job because the very conservative well-owner already knows she's not married?"

"Oh."

"Yeah, 'oh'. This is so typical of you Vash," she said while exiting the booth, "you're so ignorant and uncaring sometimes. If anyone else in town was having our problems you would jump through no end of fiery hoops to help them out, but if it's people you care about and who care about you? _They _can just fend for themselves, huh?" and with that final statement searing like a cigarette burn through my skin she huffed out the door, the entire exchange unheard by the dozens of people dancing in the diner.

I felt very tempted at that moment to throw myself into a Classic Vash Fit of Melancholy, but something stopped me and instead I went tearing out the door after her.

"Wait, short girl!" She didn't wait but I caught up with her all the same.

"Look, I'm really sorry Short Girl. Really, really, I am. It's just… you can solve anything! I have to help all those other people cuz, well, they need it!" The little devil on my shoulder almost brought up the Nebraska family, but his malevolent hissing was squashed by the sincere look of gratitude in Meryl's eyes.

"I know, I know," her voice was still angry, but I knew she was calming down by the way her shoulders slumped. "And I didn't mean those things I said back there, it's just—where did you _get _that?"

At first I thought she meant something in my hair, and my second thought was that there was an ugly fungus growing on my face, and my third idea was that she had finally noticed the new shirt the Kind Lady Next Door made for me, but I finally settled on the ring in the pawnshop.

"I still have a few trinkets from the Great Fall. How do you think I've been getting along all these years?"

"I thought you worked as a bodyguard. Or washed dishes or something."

"Oh, well that stuff too. It's just not always enough, ya know?"

"Was it very special to you?"

"Not especially."

We had said all that we needed to say, and we seemed to be returning once again to our pattern of the last couple of weeks—silence. Sometimes it was awkward, like when Millie would suddenly leave the kitchen and we unexpectedly found ourselves without anything to talk about. Sometimes it was comforting, like when she changed Knives and my bandages at night. Right now was somewhere between the two, and it made me suddenly aware that there was only one thing Meryl couldn't fix without my presence. And I should have known better than to expect our relationship to be sorted out without any input from myself. But what can I say? I was naïve and confident in Meryl's ability to mold the very cosmos to her bidding.

But there's hope: I'm in love and finally I know it. And though we certainly haven't solved all of our problems in the last month, isn't it wonderful to know that at this very moment, while I'm pressed up against her and thinking only of the sweet sounds she's making that she is thinking the same thing and feeling the same warm sensations coursing through her. For the first time we can experience the same emotions at the same time and we know-

She interrupts my thoughts. Typical. "I'm glad you're back."

"It's good to be home," I reply.

"Is this our home, now?"

"You are my home."


End file.
